Hello dear readers. In one of the previous articles, we did - sorted out salary, responsibilities and other nuances. Today we will delve deeper into the topic and talk about how a beginner to become a smm specialist from scratch. After studying the material, you will learn how to relate to the specialty correctly, receive a list of necessary skills and be able to choose the appropriate training option.

Let's start with an example that will allow you to dive into the topic and appreciate the importance of the specialty. Imagine that you are faced with the task of promoting a small group of 100 people to 20,000 subscribers. The project can be implemented using a fast and slow way, which differ in key criteria:

SMM typeA fast way based on spam, bogus contests and other prohibited techniques.The slow way, built on the development and implementation of smart marketing strategies.
The costEverything is as cheap as possible.A market price is set, which will be calculated based on the specifics of the project.
Followers"Shops of Astrakhan", "Nina Clothes", "Vasya Obuv" and other users who are useless to the customer.Each user is a potential client, since the specialist has carefully worked out the portrait of the target audience.
Result20,000 subscribers in 1-2 weeks. 20,000 subscribers in 1-2 months.
Long term effectAfter a small spike in sales, stagnation begins: the community loses its reputation and attracted subscribers. The community is developing, increasing sales and constantly attracting new target customers.

Serious business owners are not interested in fast and cheap ways to promote - people understand that only a high-quality target audience will make a profit. Therefore, further we will consider only those recommendations that will help you become a sought-after smm specialist and get many high-paying orders. Get ready for solid learning and continuous practice.

Step # 1. Develop the right attitude towards the specialty

If you are starting from scratch, then you do not need to evaluate your future profession in terms of monthly income, prestige, trends or career growth. - these are all external attributes that are constantly changing and are of secondary importance. You should enjoy the work that you can do beingsmm specialist. If you ignore this moment at the first stage, then you will quickly get exhausted, stop at the initial level and never become a pro. Consider this point and watch the next video.

Lecture on how to choose the right profession and never regret it

Step # 2. Understand the key skills of an SMM specialist

The main skills of an smm specialist are tied around the following blocks: developing a general strategy for promoting a company in social networks, setting up targeted advertising, working with various content formats, managing a target audience, designing an interface, connecting mobile messengers, interacting with opinion leaders, conducting analytics and tracking potential actions. customers from point A to purchase, implementation of classic marketing concepts and managerial skills to work simultaneously with many multidirectional tasks.

Below is a detailed checklist, where Damir Khalilov (the head of the GreenPR SMM agency) gives a detailed transcript of the skills of a successful smr. It is clear that not for all tasks all of the listed items should be implemented in one person. However, this is exactly the benchmark that many prestigious CMM agencies are guided by when hiring new candidates.

Key SMM Specialist Skills Needed to Prepare an Overall Strategy


Key skills of an SMM specialist required for working with social networks (Part 1)



Key skills of an SMM specialist in the field of working with social networks (Part 3)


Key skills of a smm specialist in the field of working with popular mobile applications


Key skills of an SMM specialist in the field of working with content


Key skills of an SMM specialist in the field of working with the target audience


Key skills of an SMM specialist in the field of design and branding of promoted communities


Key skills of an SMM specialist when working with influencers


Key skills of an SMM specialist in the field of analytical research



Key smm specialist skills required for project management

In addition to all of the above, each SMM specialist will have to deal with additional skills, the range of which will depend on the conditions of the project, the individual wishes of the customer and the chosen promotion strategy. Will need to involve the people of Beijing in the project - get ready to hire a translator or learn the language yourself; you need to reinforce the text material with infographics - think about preparing design layouts. In most cases, SMM specialists do not have time for self-education outside the region, so they try to recruit a team of proven performers who are ready to quickly and efficiently prepare the missing materials. This is not easy and will require a lot of practical experience.

How to assemble a team for an SMM specialist for a specific project

Step number 3. Master the theoretical minimum for SMM

Without education, it will not be possible to take expensive projects and bring them to the desired result. The most convenient way to do this is through, which help to avoid unnecessary mistakes and quickly learn everything you need. Next, we will recommend several online schools with quality programs, after mastering which you will receive a ticket to the profession.

Online training in the Internet marketing agency "Envelope Monster"

Here, pay attention to the program "" - this is a practical course for training specialists in promotion in social networks with training on your project (there is a free introductory lesson and installments). After completing it, you will receive:

  • Access to the agency's database of vacancies, which allows you to start earning immediately after training.
  • Useful knowledge that is not shared on the Internet and public universities.
  • with a free schedule and remote operation.
  • A completed portfolio confirming your qualifications.
  • Smm-manager certificate and letter of recommendation from the director of the agency "Envelope Monster".

If it is more convenient for you to study according to an individual schedule, then you can purchase a video recording of the course " Social Media Promotion Specialist, SMM Manager"- this is the same theoretical material that comes with feedback and checking homework within 60 days from the date of payment.

Webinar from CONVERT MONSTER on creating effective content for Facebook and Vkontakte

Study at the online university Netology

Here we are interested in the program “ SMM manager: business promotion on social networks". After the course, all students receive a diploma and a portfolio with a really completed project is a great addition to resume for employment. Before starting the training, a free consultation is available, and the course itself can be paid in installments. For graduates, there is a Career Development Center that helps with finding a job.

Advice from an expert of Netology: how to start a career of an SMM specialist with a baggage of theoretical knowledge but no practical experience

Study at Skillbox Online University

Skillbox prepared educational course "SMM marketer from A to Z" - This is a three-month program, after mastering which you will receive a diploma and will be able to apply for vacancies with a salary of 60,000-80,000 rubles. The course can be paid in installments, without the need to make an initial payment.

Fragment of a lesson from the course "SMM Marketing from A to Z"

Step # 4. After learning, move on to practice

If you have completed paid training and have mastered most of the skills of an SMM specialist, then it will not be difficult for you to prepare a resume and apply for a vacancy published on any popular job search site. If you feel insecure about your own abilities or want to work for a particular company, then try using the following step-by-step scheme:

  1. Find several SMM agencies that you would like to study with.
  2. Find a client who wants to develop their project using SMM technologies.
  3. Contact the selected SMM agencies with a business proposal: you give them clients and your free time - they give you skills and a small percentage of the order.
  4. Start working with an agency that will offer the best conditions.
  5. After training, make a plan for the future: you can stay to work in an SMM agency, become a freelancer, or open your own studio. The choice depends solely on your preferences.

This method has a simplified version when you apply to a freelancer with an offer of cooperation not to an SMM agency. If a specialist is in demand, he will gladly give you some of the projects.

How an SMM specialist can find customers for his services for free

Step # 5. Take up professional development

The Internet space is constantly evolving and filled with such tools that allow even untrained users to perform many tasks of promotion in social networks. For example, any user can download the instruction for free, and then set up and run their own advertising campaign in VK. Due to such information accessibility, the value of those SMM specialists who do not develop and do not offer their clients the latest ways to solve the assigned tasks is sharply reduced. Let's take the same group in VK: if the smm-manager not only sets up advertising, but also gives a guaranteed result, then he will not be left without work. It is not difficult, but you need to constantly monitor trends.

If you're ready to take it to the next level - pay attention to course "I am an SMM marketer PRO" from Skillbox online university... This is a powerful training course that lasts 24 months and is designed for beginners, business owners and active SMM specialists. After 4 months after the start of your studies, you will be able to receive the first paid orders with which you can pay for the course (the first payment for training can be made 6 months after the start). Additionally, you will receive guaranteed employment.

A tour of the Skillbox office: looking at the place where cool courses are made

howindependently and free of chargebecome a smm specialist from scratch

It is possible to master a new profession on your own, but it is difficult to reach the level with high-paying orders. It's all about the numerous mistakes and time that you will spend on mastering everything you need. Therefore, once again evaluate all the pros and cons. If you decide, there will be a basic course under the table.

First, familiarize yourself with the basics of the profession.

Overview of the main tools of a smm specialist

Learn basic terminology.

SMM dictionary of basic terms

Determine the scope of your authority that needs to be observed when building relationships with customers.

What an SMM specialist shouldn't do

Learn to properly respond to negativity on social media.

How to deal with inadequate commentators

Follow trends constantly and try to match them as much as possible.

SMM trends for 2020

Tune in to self-development and search for answers to all questions that your customers may have.

Silly questions for an SMM specialist

Follow other people's cases and copy all successful examples.

Analysis of smm strategies from Skillbox specialists

What's next

Friends, now you have a general idea of ​​how to become a successful and sought-after smm specialist. You just have to choose your path and proceed to its implementation. Stay tuned for new articles and share this article with your friends - perhaps one of them is dreaming of a new profession. In the next articles, we will prepare more material to help you delve into the profession and find your first job. Good luck!

The SMMshchik profession has been conquering the market over the past few years. Why? This can be explained very easily - companies began to look towards social networks as a source of additional customer flow for their products.

But despite the popularity of this profession, many still do not know or do not understand: who it is and what he does.

In this article I will give a complete answer to such a question as "SMM specialist - who is this, what does he do and how to become one." But I will not share with you some theoretical knowledge, but my experience in this profession.

Go!)

SMM specialist - who is this

Before we move on to an analysis of this profession, let's first get acquainted with the acronym CMM.

SMM (SMM) comes from the English words Social Media Marketing, which means “social media marketing”.

SMM specialist or SMM manager is a person engaged in the development and promotion of an account in social networks, attracting and engaging subscribers, as well as creating a positive image of the company on the Internet.


In fact, an SMM manager is a link in the chain: business - social network - client - sales.

Thus, the profession "SMM specialist" involves complex work on the strategy of promotion and positioning of the company in social networks, such as VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Odnoklassniki and others.

Responsibilities of the SMM specialist

Despite the popularity of this profession, employers, and the specialists themselves, cannot clearly define the scope of what an SMM manager should do. Let's take a look at this issue.

An SMM specialist, according to the employer, is a man-orchestra who must set up advertisements, write posts, conduct contests, take beautiful photographs, look for new customers, increase sales, and much more interesting things. Here is a typical vacancy for the “SMM Manager” position:

  • Creation and placement of quality content
  • Development of an advertising Internet company (target)
  • Competitive market analysis
  • Maintaining pages on all sites
  • SRM work
  • Setting up targeted and contextual advertising.
  • Conducting advertising campaigns on different platforms
  • Work on Google AdWords, Yandex.Direct. Social network
  • Content Planning (Instagram)

But does an SMM specialist really have to have such skills? In fact, yes and no at the same time.

So, in order not to fall into the trap called “what should I do,” I want to tell you what an SMM specialist should really do. For convenience, I have divided his entire range of responsibilities into several blocks:

Block one: planning

Planning is the first thing an SMM specialist starts with. This block is responsible for the path of business development in social networks. Conventionally, we have point A - this is where we are now and point B - this is where we want to come, and planning is the path between these two points.

Let's now look at what exactly is included in this block:

Collection of information

This is the first thing an SMM specialist starts with. In order to plan steps to promote the business, the SMM must understand what the company is doing, what its target audience is, what the price range of products is, how the business is developing on the Internet, are there any large and well-known competitors, etc.

In general, in this block of SMM, the specialist must clearly understand what the market is, who are the potential customers and what place a particular company occupies in the niche.

Drawing up a portrait of the target audience

We are smoothly moving from collecting information to detailed elaboration, and the first is the target audience. The SMM specialist carefully develops a "client's portrait", which includes a list of problems, desires, pains, dreams of the client and a description of how a particular product can solve or fulfill them.

This stage is very important, since the success of the future promotion of the business will depend on it, because the SMM will already clearly understand who and what he is offering.

A SMM specialist also develops a business development strategy in social networks: what result it should come to, how long it takes, what tasks we must complete, what methods and methods we will use, what resources will be involved, what budget, etc.

In general, the development strategy in SMM is a general plan for promoting a business for a long period of time with the identification of specific tasks.

Drawing up a content plan

The last task in the planning block is, which includes a list of specific topics for publications for a specific period, for example, a week, month, quarter, half a year or a year.

In essence, this is what the SMM specialist will broadcast on social networks.


example of a ready-made content plan

Block two: working with content

After the strategy has been developed, the deadlines and tasks have been determined, the SMM specialist proceeds to the next part - this is working with content for social networks. This block includes both text and visual information.

Working with text content

An SMM specialist must have the skill of writing selling, engaging, informational, educational and other types of texts for various social platforms. After all, do not forget that the main channel for communicating with the audience is text. But this does not mean that you cannot find a professional copywriter for your team;)

Working with visual content

In addition to text, an SMM manager must be well versed in the visual design of text content, that is, find interesting pictures, catchy videos or photos. Of course, a CMM specialist does not have to be a designer, but the skills of working in graphic programs will be an undoubted advantage.

Block three: working with the audience

Planning and content is just the preparatory part, the main work lies in working with the audience. All interaction with potential customers can be divided into two areas: attraction and engagement.

Engaging an audience

The main task of this area is to gather a new target audience using various communication channels:

  • advertising: The SMM should be able to find opinion leaders or bloggers who have a target audience;
  • mutual PR: this channel assumes an agreement with a blogger, businessman, opinion leader or other participant in the social space about two-way advertising on a free basis, that is, you will tell about it in your community, and he will talk about you in his;
  • viral content: creating content in a group that quickly spreads to a wide audience or affects a trending event in the world.

Engaging your audience

The main task of this block is to work with an existing audience, to maintain activity and interest using the following tools:

  • communication: creating polls in a group, answering customer questions, voting, feedback, collecting reviews, opinions, etc.;
  • cleaning from bots, obscenities and unnecessary comments: agree that it is more pleasant to read the tape, where all the answers are "on business" and from living people, and not constant spam or skirmish "like in the 90s." Plus, if you have order in your comments or discussions, it will create a positive image about your brand;


  • objection processing: this is a very important block for dealing with engagement. After all, our clients are not always satisfied with everything: someone is not satisfied with the price, someone is not satisfied with the terms of delivery or payment, and the SMM specialist must competently handle these objections so that the person has a positive impression of the company, that is, the basic skills in sales will be completely not superfluous;
  • creation of active events: holding contests, marathons, sweepstakes, flash mobs, promotions, etc.

Block four: analytics

So we come to the final block - this is statistics. An SMM specialist must be able to analyze the results of his activities and make the necessary adjustments, for example, in the content plan, in advertising campaigns or in working with objections to obtain greater efficiency.

These are the duties that the SMM specialist should perform. Please pay attention to the fact that there are tasks that are performed at the beginning of the work, there are those that are at the end, however, most of the duties are the permanent work of the SMM. Now let's look at how much an SMM manager can get.

How much does an SMM specialist earn?

Work for hire

As for the regions, the salary of an SMM specialist varies from 20,000 to 60,000 rubles.


An example of a vacancy for a SMM specialist in Lipetsk

As for Moscow and the Moscow region, wages there start from 50,000 to 100,000 rubles.


An example of a vacancy for an SMM specialist in Moscow

Freelance work

If you want to work "for yourself", that is, independently look for clients for SMM promotion, then the price for such services starts from 5,000 rubles per client to infinity, since everything here will directly depend on your skills and portfolio.


An example of the price list of one of the SMM specialist on the freelance exchange

How to become an SMM specialist from scratch and for free

If you decide to master this profession, then you can do this in six ways: specialized courses, books on SMM, free projects, internships in marketing agencies, maintaining your account and freelancing exchanges. Let's consider each of them in detail.

Specialized courses

I will not describe this item for a long time. All you have to do is search for “CMM courses” or find marketers who specialize in this area and choose the course that suits you. In addition, now there are a lot of free courses, marathons or webinars, so you can find training for every taste and color.

SMM Books

If you don’t have the time or funds to buy courses yet, then books can be excellent guides to the world of SMM.


Here is a selection of books, thanks to which you can get a high-quality theoretical base in this area:

  1. Instagram administrator. Earning Guide
  2. Tough SMM. Get the most out of social media
  3. Targeted advertising. Right in the bull's eye
  4. SMM FROM ZERO. Secrets of social media promotion
  5. Social media marketing
  6. SMM for beginners
  7. SMM Training. Principles of making money on Instagram
  8. Guerrilla social media marketing. User manual for SMM manager

Free projects

If you have already received the theoretical part or want to see all the subtleties of SMM in practice, then free projects will be an excellent start for you, where you can gain experience and get material for your portfolio.

For example, you can find such projects in groups on VKontakte by searching for "looking for an administrator", "group administrator".


An example of a recruitment announcement for a group development project on VKontakte

Internship in Marketing Agencies

Many agencies or companies want to independently nurture their SMM specialist. And this is a great chance for beginners to get their first experience, but, however, for a minimal fee in this area.

In order to find such employers, go to any site where vacancies are posted, enter in the search “SMM specialist” and put the filter “no experience”.


An example of vacancies in the direction of SMM for beginners

Maintaining your account

Yes, don't be surprised at this point, because your social media account is a great platform to gain experience in writing content, placing ads, or working with an audience.

The main thing is to choose your niche, compose a portrait of the target audience and post content regularly.

Personally, when I studied the SMM sphere, I started with this method - I kept my Instagram account as a blog about remote earnings on the Internet. And I have received offers to maintain other accounts.


An example of one of the proposals for maintaining an account on Instagram

Freelance exchanges

Freelance exchanges are where you can find your first customers. But do not count on a lot of money right away, remember, first you need to gain experience and build a portfolio.

Choose an exchange, register on it and take on any orders via SMM or maintaining accounts on social networks.

Let's summarize

After reading this article, I think that the question "Who is an SMM specialist" does not arise for you. Now you know what kind of profession it is, what skills you need to have, how much he earns and how you can master this field of activity for free.

Yes, indeed, now the SMM specialist is a very popular profession, but there are still few good specialists in it.

And if you decide to plunge into the world of SMM, then my advice is to start with courses or books, and then gradually move on to practice, for example, find a project or maintain your account. At first, this is to bring a minimum income, but with the growth of your competencies, you can earn from 50,000 rubles a month.

Do you love to hang out on social networks and communicate with people there? I can congratulate you, you are one step away from the SMM manager! Joke. In fact, the SMM (as it is also called) needs to be able to do a lot. In this article I will tell you that this is an SMM manager.

The most important thing to start: SMM is Social Media Marketing. Social media (networks) marketing. Today SMMs are subdivided into sub-professions, I will tell you more about this in the article itself.

In this article I will tell you how people get into the specialty smm-manager, what kind of profession it is, what pitfalls there are.

SMM-manager - what is it and where did this profession come from?

Today's SMM originated from "big" marketing: when social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Twitter became popular, well-known companies and brands came there. They always go to where their target audience is going (people to whom a product or service can be sold).

And since there is a target audience on social networks, there must be those who interact with it. A specially trained manager who can speak with social networks in their language. This is how the profession of an SMM-manager appeared: a multi-armed multi-legged who is able to create, analyze, and communicate with people and build a long-term strategy.

The more the SMM can do, the better for him. A tough pro with hands will be ripped off by a large agency, or simply hired by a company to become its representative on social networks. But in practice, an SMM-manager needs to be able to do so many things that in one person it is almost never combined.

Skill 1: Social Media Promotion

What any audience engagement starts with: advertising. On social networks, it is divided into three global types:

  • Official advertising based on the platform itself
  • Unofficial advertising in other people's accounts, publics, channels
  • Self-promotion through all kinds of likes, comments, mailings to private messages.

The first two methods are paid, the second is shareware. Not everyone can be engaged in promotion, they specially learn this. They study a specific target audience of the brand, model an "avatar", that is, the audience's pains, needs, wealth. And then they test a bunch of different hypotheses about how to interact with them. Attract with video or photo ads? What language to speak? How do you get a person to click on an ad? What will hook him?

This is a separate large branch of marketing, it is called targetology, from the word target - the goal. I will not dwell on it in detail now, I will only say that targetologists are in great demand today and they are taught in many places. But one targetologist, in isolation from the other generation chain of the so-called. leads is not effective. If you just bring customers to subscribe to the group and do nothing else with them, then there will be no effect from your promotion - the business needs customers, not subscribers.

I write in detail about targeting in the article “ Who is the targeting specialist, and what are his tasks?


There are a lot of social networks, and your eyes run wild from opportunities for promotion!

Skill 2: Analytics

Another duty of a multifaceted specialist is to analyze WHO came to him. Study the portrait of your audience. Are they predominantly men, women, or approximately equally? Do they have the same needs, or do they want different things from you? With what objections do they most often come to you? What cities do they live in? They have kids? What is their average earnings? Do they make a single purchase from you, or do they come back often? How many loyal customers are there in relation to new ones?

All these and 1001 more questions the SMM manager should be able to ask himself, answer, and then present in the form of a report to his employer. Firstly, this way you show that you do not just sit upright, posting pictures about cats in public, but study the market, do what you are paid for. Secondly, receiving such invaluable data, your customer can adjust their own strategy of behavior in the market. Simply put, when he finds out that tourists are buying your backpacks, he can order an advertising campaign aimed specifically at those who go on vacation.

Naturally, you also need to analyze the reaction to your posts on social networks. Which ones collect more likes, reposts, comments. Why? What time? This is necessary in order to understand what people react to best in order to build a content plan further.

That is, filling the group with the content that will further increase engagement (likes, reposts, comments). After all, the more engagement, the better the whole group reacts, the more new customers come, the more the company's profit.

Skill 3: Content Creation

An SMM manager must be a good copywriter. To be able to write short, concise, interesting Do you know that in a long text VKontakte automatically truncates the first paragraph, most often? leaving only 5 sentences above the "Details" tag? And you, as a group admin, only have 5 lines to keep the reader interested before they flip through your post.

Content is critical, but it shouldn't be too flashy, offensive, or out of bounds. It should be written in a language understandable to the reader, but immediately convey the essence for which the text was written. Remember that VK is not a lecture hall, not a philosophical treatise, but a place for entertainment and communication. And if you have something to say, then speak immediately. Without long introductions, introductory speeches, from which it becomes boring.

The above applies not only to VK, but also to Instagram and Facebook. In social networks, people respond well even to advertising posts, if they are not composed of the standard. And not advertising content should be written in the most exciting way, so that the person feels that you are addressing him personally and giving him something really interesting. Useful, necessary. And never publish several of the same posts at a time, otherwise you will simply be hidden from the feed. And you will lose contact with the subscriber.


When they talk about a four-legged, many-legged SMM, this is only partly a joke ...

Skill 4: Design

You might think that designers should be engaged in design, not CMM-specialists. But the fact is that in public, design plays not only the role of decoration. It is also an element of communication with subscribers.

For example, in the community header, any marketing guru will always tell you to place a name and a short capacious description of what the group is about. So that the beginner immediately understands what is interesting here. And you also need to check how the header looks on the screen of a mobile phone, because the version of VK for smartphones simply cuts off the edges of the horizontal cover. All these nuances may not be known to “mere mortals”, but the SMM should know about them.

A couple of years ago, personal design of the WIKI menu was very popular in public. It was essentially a mini-page with buttons that, when clicked, opened different pages. But now VK has changed, wiki markup is a thing of the past, but everyone writes articles. Such as you are now reading. Only you are on my website, and there the articles open directly without leaving VKontakte. And the design is still used there - everyone always needs pictures for articles.


WIKI markup is becoming less common in 2020, but this does not mean that it has lost its importance.

Social media design was and will be needed. And if you can make at least a simple header for a subscription page in Senler (a service for sending messages), this will be a big plus for you in your work. By the way, a simple hat with beautiful fonts can be made even without Photoshop, for example, in a free service Canva.com.

Skill 5: Communication

One of the main responsibilities of a SMM manager is to build communication. Remember, I jokingly started my article with this? But this is absolutely true. The SMM communicates a lot with clients, because this is how you can have them to yourself. And he also has to work out the so-called. negative, cover up pains and objections. And if he does it badly, then the opinion of the WHOLE COMPANY may suffer.

Want an example? Three years ago I went to a KFC counter in a city near Moscow and asked for a wedge twister. Since I am a vegetarian, this dish is the only one that I could order in this institution. In response, I was told that the wedge twister was taken out of the menu. In fact, I was left without breakfast that day. Seething with anger, I climbed into the official KFC public VK, wrote them a message, in which I said exactly that - "you left me without breakfast." After about half an hour I was told: "Try to eat potato cutlet for breakfast."


Is this a bad answer? Yes, it is terrible, because in fact, they did not even sympathize with me, they did not explain why they removed my favorite product from the menu, did not take part in my situation in any way. They only offered to replace one product with another, although the cat cried about this product in their portions. In short, it was a bad example of CMM management.

What should be good? The SMM must understand that for the client he is the face of the brand. Like any other salesperson, he is also responsible for the perception of the entire company. And I had a positive experience of communicating with such people.

Want an example? No problem. I want to buy myself new headphones, I find them through a search in several stores. In one of them, I see a price that suits me, but I want to clarify the availability of headphones and delivery terms. I don’t want to spend money on phone calls (or I’m an introvert and only text). Therefore, I scroll down to the contact block and find a link to the VKontakte public store. And there I see the button "Write a message". I press it, and after a couple of minutes the manager answers me, who tells me: there are no headphones in one store, but there are in another. And how to get to it.

Skill 6: Strategy Development

To tell you the truth, there are very few strategists in the market today who understand how to develop brands and services of companies on social media. If only because the social networks themselves are constantly changing, growing, introducing something new.

One may ask: how can an SMM-manager develop some kind of strategy, if this is the manager's business? Yes it's true. But social media is only one channel through which a product can be sold. The company may have advertisements on radio, television, search engines and public on the social network. So, the public needs its own strategy, which is different from all the others.

The point is that on Instagram, VK, and Facebook, people want to be communicated with. After all, this is a social network, it was created for the sake of communication. You can't just constantly fake advertising posts in the hope of an unrelenting stream of applications. People need to be entertained, to come up with contests and activities for them. And if some kind of negative reaction suddenly arises, you need to immediately come and react to it.

A simple example: once in VK someone wrote in their hearts that "this Tinkoff is not even a real bank." In response to which, a few minutes later, in the same comment thread, a response from the verified Tinkoff account appeared: “Why are we not a real bank ?!”.


Tinkoff Bank cannot be denied the brightness of promotion!

Note that this is not an emotional reaction, but a deliberate move. First, Tinkoff Bank has a special person monitoring brand mentions on social networks. Secondly, the same or another person comes to any such mention and answers. That is, today no one reads how he was beaten somewhere in VK yesterday. And he comes right away and defends his point of view. Therefore, a strategy of HOW to do it is vital for social media.

Another example: the Russian Post, dearly “beloved” by all of us, has also undertaken to explore the vast expanses of the Bolshoi Theater. And reacts to mentions on social networks. Here's what the reaction looks like to a photo of the collapsing facade of a building, where a fresh renovation was made a year ago:


It is a pity that only the Post's repair technologies are not yet at such a height as the technologies for finding a mention of oneself in social networks ...

Several technical aspects

When a community is hosted by a specially hired SMM (admin), it is very important that its subscribers do not feel abandoned. Therefore, a good manager always responds to comments, especially with questions about a product / service.

To follow new VKontakte comments, you can use the VK Admin program, it is available for both iOS and Android, free. Allows you to immediately receive notifications about private messages to the group, and about comments, and about any other activities. The faster you answer, the higher the chance that the prospect will bring real money to your employer.

Another very important feature that almost no one ever thinks about: people who joined the public and people who liked a particular post. Perhaps I already wrote something on this topic above, but I will repeat myself. The point is that if you see a fresh interest in your topic and you have a task - to bring as many new clients as possible, then, as an SMM manager, you must use every opportunity for this.


A cool SMM box can even use likes for promotion! Laeks ... Laikov ...

So an ordinary like will turn into the first very serious touch with a potential client. Almost no one does this, because the work seems to be very dreary and time-consuming. But listen, you’re an SMM. Your whole job will be about communicating with people, isn't it?

Exactly the same story with the newcomers. Remember when I talked about analytics? It makes sense to study after which post people join the most (for example, if it has been reposted a lot). It also makes sense to greet each newcomer in private messages, ask what interests you, offer your product, listen to the person. Just through ordinary communication, you can bring dozens of clients to the business every month. From social media alone.

Do you really need to plow so much?

A fair question: do you really need to know so many things and work SO much to work as an SMM? Well, the question here is what exactly does your employer need. The tasks can be very different.


There are mountains of work behind beautiful logos and brilliant pictures ...

I had a friend who was hired for 10 thousand rubles a month to fill a public dedicated to Moscow events. Concerts, festivals. The essence of her work boiled down to the fact that she copied photos and texts from other similar sites, in advance hammered them into posts with delayed publication and ... that's all.

All work at most for 4 hours a week, and for this they paid 10 thousand rubles a month. In fact, it was not the job of an SMM manager, but a content manager. If you recruit 4 such customers, then you can earn 40 thousand a month, working, well, if a couple of days a week. What I have described is mechanical work that does not require skills, it is difficult to call it even a full-fledged SMM.

Choose a customer according to your strength, so as not to overstrain from habit. When you get used to it, find another one, and so you can increase your earnings in SMM!

Another friend of mine once worked as an SMM on a very cool project dedicated to online education. I didn’t ask how much he was paid, but he was able to afford several travels in Europe without much hitting his family budget. He was a full-fledged SMM manager: he monitored everything that happened in the group, greeted newcomers, responded to all comments and to every private message. Analyzed group statistics, promoted the brand on a social network. Gave discounts. Entertained, carried away and sold.

In such a position, he had to give all his best in order to maintain the image of a large educational project with which people develop trusting relationships. And he was a very important and helpful employee for the company. He was even called smm-Jedi, hinting at the presence of superpowers. =)

And I myself once tried to work as an SMM-manager for an international company that was engaged in organizing weddings in the Czech Republic. A month later, I realized that this story was not about me and left there. But in the process of communicating with the director and the designer, we created a logo based on my idea, which they still use today. And yes, I didn’t earn as much as I wanted, but I still didn’t leave without money 🙂

What qualities does an SMM need?

1 Quality... Sociability. Of course, to work as a cool SMM you need to be sociable. Love people and adore contacting them. Write to them, ask them if they like everything, solve the problems they have. So, if you hate communicating with people, then you definitely should not be engaged in SMM, but it is better to do some other specialty that is not tied to communication.

2 quality. A responsibility. By the manner in which the manager communicates in public, by the commitment with which he approaches his duties, they will judge the company as a whole. I already told you: the SMM-shik is one of the faces of the company. And by the way, therefore, you will need to be able to write correctly and clearly. No swearing, slang, personal transitions and value judgments. It seems simple, but not everyone can do it well.

The main point of any communication between the SMM and the client is not to get worn out, but to make the client more loyal to the brand and company. And the best thing is to “close” for some kind of sale. After all, the SMM is paid precisely for the final result: bringing new clients to the company and maintaining contacts with old ones.

3 quality. Seriousness. There are a lot of distractions on social media. They are created for relaxation, people come to their favorite social networks to communicate and have fun. But the SMM is working here. In this he is a bit like the host of events: weddings or birthdays. Where all the guests have fun, the host very seriously "plows" for several hours in a row. The same is with the CMM manager, his task is to make the community users feel good, it is interesting that they remember the brand as what they like. And then they came to the store and bought some product from this company.

4 quality. Stress tolerance. People always have complaints with which they come to the official public of the company. And they write without hesitation in expressions. The SMM manager must be able to enter the situation of the person with whom he is communicating. Because even simple sympathy on his part can remove a whole heap of objections from the client. To say "I understand you, this is a disgrace" is not difficult at all. And now you are already acting in concert with the client who wrote to you, and he no longer wants to kill you so badly. Great, isn't it? =)

See the whole picture globally

The SMM-manager can and should imagine the entire path of the client from clicking on an advertisement to the final sale of a product or service to him. The manager must understand where the person came from to his public. He must know WHAT people come to him and subscribe. A good manager constantly analyzes the situation.

An SMM manager tries to understand a person by his profile on a social network. Do not just sculpt your commercial proposals on the forehead, but understand who exactly you are talking to. For example, if the person on the wall has an explicit football theme, you might ask how a team played yesterday. Start a dialogue. And as a result, having broken the first ice of mistrust and alienation, already talk about the case.

Why such difficulties, you may ask? And then, having established contact with a person, you are imprinted in his memory, and in the end he will come to you again and again. You may even be friends. Having spent a little time on communication, the SMM-manager can easily create a loyal customer for himself. And later - a brand advocate who will work for you, word of mouth. Of course, this is only possible with a quality product.

How to becomeSMM-manager?

Those who have read up to this point may have decided that they need to become a Ph.D. in order to then become an SMM Jedi. In fact, there is nothing impossible here, there have been online courses for a long time, on which they will load your head up to the eyeballs with everything useful that is needed for this work. Pay attention:

Skillbox -SMM marketer from A to Z


Outcome

I think that SMM is a very interesting job. A competent specialist, combining several areas (targetology, maintaining a public, copywriting) can easily earn 40-60 thousand rubles a month or more.

Moreover, a social media manager is a necessary profession, since getting a quick response from a representative of the company you interact with every day is invaluable. Good SMMs are needed today as they have never been needed before.

So you learned that this is an SMM manager. Do you want to become one of them? Learn, dare. Everything will work out for you. Thanks for reading. Good luck and see you at

Marketing and promotion in social media (SMM)

This course meets the requirements of the draft professional standard "Internet Marketing Specialist".

Attention! All course participants must have accounts on the social networks VKontakte and Facebook. Instagram and Odnoklassniki accounts are welcome.

The explosive growth of social media a few years ago forced many companies to start allocating large budgets for promotion in them. This course will allow you to be on the crest of the trend of conquering social networks. You will learn how to attract a loyal audience to a product or brand, expand market share and solve other business problems. You will receive complete information about all methods of promotion: reputation monitoring and management, promotion in networks, blogging, new wave social networks, etc. And also get the skills to audit the effectiveness of advertising SMM campaigns.

The course is built on a large number examples and analysis of cases... The knowledge and experience of a teacher-practitioner in the field of Internet marketing work for you. This course is a unique opportunity for the modern marketer!

Course calculated for beginners in the field of Internet marketing, small business owners interested in solving their current business problems, managers of medium and large business leaders interacting with contractors and performers in the field of Internet marketing, as well as for anyone interested in SMM (social media marketing), SMO (social media optimization).

The course will definitely interest specialists in search engine promotion and contextual media advertising, heads of sales and marketing services, advertising and public relations, content managers, SMM managers, Internet marketers, and Internet project managers.

The course program provides sufficient knowledge to pass the SMM Expert exam at RDC.center, which is the industry standard for SMM specialists. The listener is given the opportunity to take a practice exam for free!

Students of the course will also receive free access to the social network analytics system from the partner of the Specialist Training Center, Amplifer.

It's hard to imagine modern life without the influence of the Internet. People buy various goods there, order services, communicate, get to know each other and just relax. The Internet has also become a place of work for many different specialists. Blogs, websites and social networks are what you can make tens of thousands of dollars from, and there are a lot of ways to make money. Every day the number of sites is increasing, the number of users of social networks is increasing. All this leads to the emergence of new professions associated with the development and promotion of Internet resources. Today we will talk about social advancement. I think that there is no need to explain why social networks are the object of our attention. I can only say one thing - 180 million. This is the number of registered users of Vkontakte, and 50 million of them visit the site every day. This is a huge platform for making money, promoting your own brand and developing a website. And of course there is a separate caste of people who are promoting in social networks, these are SMM specialists.

Related article:

SMM and SMO promotion - what is it?

Those who were previously interested in social promotion have probably already met such abbreviations as SMM and SMO. What is it and what is the difference between them? If we consider in detail, then SMO (from the English Social Media Optimization) is one of the types of modern external website promotion, which consists in filling the site and promoting it on social networks. In fact, you do not need to look at the search engines, the whole focus, and all the traffic you will receive from various social media. Networks. SMM (from the English Social Medial Marketing) is the process of attracting visitors to the site using the capabilities of social networks. Also SMM specialists are engaged in the development of brands in the network, the formation of its positive image. To a greater extent, this is the work of marketers, only the main emphasis is on the social sphere. I am sure that after reading two definitions, you will ask "What's the difference between SMM and SMO?" Although these concepts are very similar, they are not the same. We can say that SMO is an integral part of SMM. The main goal of SMO is to attract social network users to your site. For this, special groups are created, advertising campaigns and various promotions are held. SMM includes SMO, but the main goal is to popularize the brand, project, resource in the social network itself. The methods used in SMM promotion are more varied and more creative. Here you need to think not in a formulaic way, but to select more and more new ways to implement the tasks.

SMM specialist - career prospects

With the advent of the Internet, many large companies began to understand that it was the future, but if 10 years ago the prospects for various professions on the Internet were vague, then with the advent of social networks, and the strengthening of their influence, it finally became clear that there would be a huge demand for good specialists. SEO optimizers used to be such specialists, and now more and more companies are focusing on promoting and creating a positive image on social networks. This is what they need SMMs for. As you can imagine, a specialist, in whatever field he works, is always appreciated. The internet is no exception. Today, a master of social promotion can earn from $ 3,000 per month and every day the earning opportunities, and accordingly the profit, are only growing. The main thing here is to occupy your niche in time, while there is still good demand and there is an opportunity to make a decent name for yourself.

How to become an SMM specialist?

As Lenin said - "studies, studies and studies again." In order to become an SMM specialist, you don't need to wipe your pants at the university for 5 years and get an unnecessary diploma. Self-education is the foundation of this promising profession. Already, there are many manuals on the net that will help you take the first steps. Pay attention to the phrase "first steps". You just have to take the vector of motion, understand the basics, all further study is only on your own. Try to create your own group, promote it using various methods. You can create a website and experiment, start pouring traffic from social networks to your website. Trust that no amount of webinars and books will give you the experience that you get on your own. Only real practice and understanding of the thinking of network users can turn you from an ordinary user into a real SMM master.

Why is SMM better than other promotion methods?

Speaking about SMM, it is worth dwelling in more detail on the advantages of such promotion over other types of development of your own brand, product or resource. After all, I declare that SMM is the future, and it would be nice to show you the real advantages that social media has already today, not to mention what will happen in a couple of years, given the frantic pace of development of social networks.

Related article:

  1. SMM promotion is cheaper than SEO or search engine advertising. This factor can be decisive for a young businessman who does not have a lot of money for promotion. Over time, the effect of SMM will only increase, and there will be more and more ways to promote. It can be assumed that the price will not rise either.
  2. Incredible prospects. It would seem that the largest social network Vkontakte already unites 180 million people, much more. But no, it is actively developing, more and more new people are attracted, the audience is growing. This means that SMM also has good prospects, and not just good ones, but wonderful ones.
  3. Virus intensity of promotion. With the help of SMM, you can easily launch viral ads that can lift your brand from rags to riches in a matter of days. Social media is the best place for this type of advertising. Very fast dissemination of information, easy exchange between users, accessibility - perhaps these are the determining factors that speak for SMM.
  4. Lack of great competition. Not everyone has yet managed to understand the possibilities of social networks, although the trend for development is good. If in search engines, in order to take top positions and attract a visitor by a competitive request, you need to work very hard, then with social networks everything is much easier so far. Of course, over time, the competition and struggle for the user will only increase, but in any case, SMM has more prospects and options for attracting people.

SEO cannot boast of such an effect, since this type of promotion is not intended for viral marketing at all.